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Comment by Chris Robinson on September 29, 2008 at 12:37pm

Training tips
The Case of Doctor Boctor----Posted 9/29/08
Several years ago, one of my clients--a psychotherapist--sent me one of his patients to train. This woman was a medical doctor who had endured a lifelong fear of engaging in athletics, or any activity that involved more than the slightest exertion. Her first few workouts, she was visibly shaken when attempting to lift even one plate on any of the Nautilus machines. Eventually I was successful in increasing her strength until she could perform reps with two or three plates on most of the machines, although she simply refused to go anywhere near failure. While she was always working submaximally, it was also true that she had overcome her fear of exertion considerably. I was not satisfied, however. I wanted her to train closer to failure and have no fear of the experience. So, I hit upon a plan.

At the point where she was willing to perform a few reps with 30 pounds on the Nautilus Curl, I sought to trick her, so to speak. During one workout involving that exercise, I had her cease the set before her usual "failure" point, and asked her to hold on for a moment. I lurched behind the machine to the weight stack, and quickly placed the pin in the 80 pound mark. Then I helped her bring the movement arms into the fully contracted position, and authoritatively told her to "hold" the weight in that position. She did so with greater ease than I would've suspected; in fact, after 10-12 seconds of conversing while holding the 80 pounds statically in the fully contracted position, she started exerting herself more than usual, more than when doing full range movemements. It was then that I took the handles from her and placed the weight on the floor. At that point, I suggested she walk around to the back of the machine and see for herself how much weight she had been working to hold. She was astonished to say the least. "You see, Doctor Boctor (her real name), as fearful as you have been in lifting a mere 30 pounds, you held, with considerable effort, almost three times that weight, 80 pounds, in the fully contracted position." This knowledge and experience helped the good doctor overcome her fear of engaging in heavy physical exertion even further.

Attention Personal Trainers!--Posted 9/29/08

It is particularly important for trainers to understand the importance of negative training, as they will inevitably have clients who are so weak that they can't perform even one rep on certain exercises, exercises in addition to the Dip and Chin. I've had frail females, for instance, who couldn't perform even one rep with one plate on the Nautilus Overhead Press. After three or four workouts of doing this exercise in negative only fashion, they were soon performing full range reps with one or more plates.

Believe It or Not: He Gained 19 Pounds of Muscle in 30 Days!--Posted 9/29/08

Not long before my experience with Doctor Boctor, I had received a phone call from an elderly woman in France. She explained that she had listened to three audio taped interviews I had done with a muscle magazine publisher; and that she was very impressed with both my training philosophy along with my philosophy of life. She was one of Europe's best known artists who, unsurprisingly, possessed a keen interest in all of philosophy. (Aesthetics, or art, is a branch of philosophy.)

These tapes had an enormous impact on her; such that she trusted me enough to have her 20 year old grandson spend one month in Venice, California for the express purpose of my personally supervising his training.

Upon his arrival at Gold's Gym for his first workout, Frederick Munthe weighed 160 pounds at 6'2." The goal of this young man was not to be a bodybuilder, but to add enough lean muscle mass so he could become a fashion model. (A bodyweight of 160 pounds at 6'2" apparently presented too slight of an appearance, even for male fashion models.) At that juncture, approximately five years ago, I was training people for 20-30 minutes three times a week; and that's how I trained Frederick.

He gained in strength and size every workout for 12 workouts, spanning exactly one month. We met at Gold's Gym his last day in America, right before his departure to the airport to go home to France. He weighed 179 pounds that day; and much to his delight. At one point, I pinched an area of Frederick's waist to see if he had gained much fat. As linear and low in bodyfat as he was to begin with, it would have been relatively easy to detect any appreciable fat increase. When I told him that I thought there might be a slight increase in bodyfat, he responded rather pithily, "Come on, Mike, you're trying too hard to be objective. You know damned well that I am just as lean now as I was a month ago."

Frederick's gain of 19 pounds of muscle in one month represents the greatest one-month increase of any client I've ever had. Such gains are possible to many for whom building muscle seems an elusive prospect. With a properly conducted Heavy Duty, high-intensity training program, however, your chances of achieving similar results are greatest.